Some programmers often regard programming as an art. They develop software because they have an urge to create things, like all artists. Moreover, they want to express themselves through software development.
However, an artistic programmer often faces the dilemma of belonging to an organization. The organization's objectives are often priorized over art, thus making the artistic programmer unhappy with his work. He doesn't want to fix bugs in the customer's code base; he wants to put his imagination at work.
In the company side, the software created by the programmers must deliver value to the customer. It doesn't matter how beautiful is the code, the only important thing is whether the software can improve the customer's competitiveness (and thus justify the big amounts of money that he's been putting on development).
The question is: how can we solve such conflict if interests? Is there any way to bind the artistic aspirations of the passionate artist to the organization's objectives? Or, more directly: could art become competitive in its entirety?
Thanks.
Pedro.